The Right Call on Iran, But It Shouldn ’t Be Trump’s Call

It says something about the way we go to war now that one almost feels like thanking President Trump for deciding, at the last minute, not to kill (at least) 150 people —and risk catastrophic conflict with Iran—in order to avenge one unmanned Northrup-Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, downed by an Iranian missile. It wouldn’t be “proportionate,” hesaid, and he ’s right—though that apparentlydidn ’t bother National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and CIA Director Gina Haspel.While you ’d never call the man cautious, much lesssqueamish about foreign casualties, it ’s not the first time Donald Trump has appeared that way compared to the putative “adults in the room” advising him. There are several such stories in Bob Woodward’s 2018 bookFear: Trump in the White House. In April 2017, for example, after Trump becomes enraged by video of Syrian children dying from a sarin gas attack, the Joint Chiefs present him with a range of airstrike options that includes a 200-missile attack aimed at taking out the bulk of the Syrian Air Force (and almost certainly killing large numbers of Russian advisers) Trump does the smarter thing and bombs an empty runway. The night of the strike, he calls a National Security Council meeting. Woodward writes that Trump was “unusually focused on the details…. What happens if a missile goes off course?” Trump’s so concerned about it, he demands that Mattis get him a secure line to the captains o...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs